Apple rules top three smartphone spots but loses new users to Android

Apple was responsible for the top three best-selling smartphones in the US …

Apple continues to hold the title for some of the top-selling smartphone models, with the iPhone 4S being the best selling handset in the US last quarter, according to a new report by market research firm NPD. But while the iPhone has repeatedly made Apple the top smartphone vendor in the US, Android still appears to be attracting more new users.

Apple had three iPhone models available for sale in the fourth quarter of 2011: the just-released iPhone 4S, the iPhone 4, which Apple continues to sell as a lower-cost entry-level model, and the nearly three-year-old iPhone 3GS, which AT&T still offers as essentially a $0 bargain smartphone. Collectively, all iPhones sold accounted for 43 percent of smartphone sales in the US for the quarter.

According to NPD analyst Ross Rubin, Apple sold nearly two iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 4 sold, and five iPhone 4S models for every iPhone 3GS sold. And despite the large disparity in numbers, the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, and iPhone 3GS ended up being the top three smartphones sold in the US.

But even with the top Android smartphone (Samsung Galaxy SII) being outsold more than five to one in the US, Android handsets in aggregate still accounted for 48 percent of US smartphone sales last quarter, accord to NPD's data. Perhaps more alarming for Apple, users buying their first smartphones chose an Android device 57 percent of the time, and an iOS device just 34 percent of the time.

While Android has been criticized for its platform fragmentation and the complexity it presents to users, the platform's wide carrier support, growing app selection, and variety of models available from several vendors attracts a generally wider audience. Particularly in the US, Rubin noted, Android is the only choice for users who want to take advantage of LTE networks from Verizon and AT&T or Sprint's WiMAX network.

174 Reader Comments

Wow these so called global sales studies just make me laugh.In china alone, there hundreds of brands of android phones which wasnt included in the study.Then there are the brands in Korea and Japan like sky, pantech, NTC, panasonic etcIt seems that only the big international manufacturers are in the sales study.If you take into account the not so well known names, android phones (all android phones regardless of specs are smartphones) have a really big lead over apple.

To cut things short, I will buy an Ipad 3 when it came out, and when the time came for me to have new phone, it will be an iphone.

Currently I use android phone ( 2.1 update 1). Garmin Asus A50 , if you need a clue on why I'm moving to Apple.

Apple doesn't care on all these nonsense because they cater for different type of user, and different market. The fact that they managed to become this big and this profitable despite their market share on PC tells something. Something right on their part, that is.

Can anyone recommend a smart phone not made by slave labor at Foxconn?

I'm tired of this meme. Virtually everything you will buy, is in part made via child labor. Whether it's made in China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, or Mexico (or elsewhere). There's plenty of little kids slaving away to get your shit made. While it's very much wrong, at least these factories provide wages and work environments much better than where these kids might be working without said factories (like coca fields, rice patties, or acting as drug mules). As said countries progress, things will only improve for those who work there (just as things did here, in the 'States - remember what factories were like in the US in the early 1900's).

Yes, we can and should do better to force third world countries to improve worker's rights. However, we can't do without inexpensive manufacturing. Lest of course you want to pay $900 for even the least feature worthy motherboard and $5,000 for every iPad. Sometimes life sucks, but this is the way it is.

Just remember, Apple is far from the only tech company building product in these countries. Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, and Dell are just a few to name names.

This is pretty disingenuous. The cost of labor is a small fraction of the overall product. One article estimated bringing iPhone production to the US would cost an extra $65/unit. IMO that's a gross overestimation based on very back of a napkin calculations that fail to take into the account the tax benefits Apple would experience by not having to repatriate money back into the US at a 35% tax rate, or tax incentives from local and state authorities that would bring down their costs in return for the jobs they would provide.

At any rate, the US does nothing to force foreign manufacturers to provide higher quality of living to their employees. We could easily pass legislation forcing all exporters to care more for their environment or reduce employee hours (which would reduce labor supply and drive up wages) if they wanted to sell in the American market. But the US doesn't because it cares far more about its corporations than its citizens or foreigners.

Funny reports. How Apple could lose new users when you see the iPhone 4S numbers that crushes every android phones ? Not to say that if you take a look at net acces numbers (the means you only count smartphones and not cheap phone or every stuff that use Android because it's free), the numbers are even more in favor of Apple.

Can anyone recommend a smart phone not made by slave labor at Foxconn?

I'm tired of this meme. Virtually everything you will buy, is in part made via child labor. Whether it's made in China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, or Mexico (or elsewhere). There's plenty of little kids slaving away to get your shit made. While it's very much wrong, at least these factories provide wages and work environments much better than where these kids might be working without said factories (like coca fields, rice patties, or acting as drug mules). As said countries progress, things will only improve for those who work there (just as things did here, in the 'States - remember what factories were like in the US in the early 1900's).

Yes, we can and should do better to force third world countries to improve worker's rights. However, we can't do without inexpensive manufacturing. Lest of course you want to pay $900 for even the least feature worthy motherboard and $5,000 for every iPad. Sometimes life sucks, but this is the way it is.

Just remember, Apple is far from the only tech company building product in these countries. Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, and Dell are just a few to name names.

This is pretty disingenuous. The cost of labor is a small fraction of the overall product. One article estimated bringing iPhone production to the US would cost an extra $65/unit. IMO that's a gross overestimation based on very back of a napkin calculations that fail to take into the account the tax benefits Apple would experience by not having to repatriate money back into the US at a 35% tax rate, or tax incentives from local and state authorities that would bring down their costs in return for the jobs they would provide.

At any rate, the US does nothing to force foreign manufacturers to provide higher quality of living to their employees. We could easily pass legislation forcing all exporters to care more for their environment or reduce employee hours (which would reduce labor supply and drive up wages) if they wanted to sell in the American market. But the US doesn't because it cares far more about its corporations than its citizens or foreigners.

The slowest-selling, three-year-old iPhone 3GS still outsells the top Android phone, while the iPhone 4s sells over 5x as much.Apple on its own holds nearly half of the smartphone market.iPhones make 60-70% profit.Each new model outsells the previous model and sets new, insane sales numbers.Apple makes more revenue and profit from their iPhones than anything else they make, including computers.Apple has repeatedly proven they want high-margin and profit over market share.

Somehow, I don't think anyone at Apple is losing sleep over these first-time Android buyers.

Apple fans like to defend the company that produces their phone... giving so much money that in the end made Apple the most profitable company in the world.

Didn't anyone think that to make the most profits it must mean that they charge the most surcharge on their products?

The whole point of competition is to get better products and better prices... look at Intel vs AMD, I don't think we'd have the prices and performance of today if there was no competition. However, somehow, Apple is fine charging whatever they fell like, and getting away with it. And that's the reason I'm never buying an Apple product.

Btw, at the moment I have a Galaxy S2, but i'm open to WP (when it goes to 8), and excited about ICS when it's released. When I have a need for a mobile I evaluate what's on the market, which one satisfies my needs and then buy, regardless of what's the brand on the outside.

Didn't anyone think that to make the most profits it must mean that they charge the most surcharge on their products?

No. That's a very naive view of production. The profitability is derived from margin, which they increase by driving down their costs through superior supply chain management. Do they have an obligation to pass their savings on to the consumer? No. As long as their products are priced competitively with the competition and of similar value, the prices are fair. The iPhone isn't the most expensive smartphone on the market, so any claims of overpricing fall flat.

Also consider the amount of infrastructure dedicated to potentially supporting each iPhone customer, at no additional or recurring cost - iCloud, Siri, iOS updates, etc. All of these costs are amortized and built into the final, one-time sale price of each device over its projected lifetime.

moullas wrote:

The whole point of competition is to get better products and better prices... look at Intel vs AMD, I don't think we'd have the prices and performance of today if there was no competition. However, somehow, Apple is fine charging whatever they fell like, and getting away with it. And that's the reason I'm never buying an Apple product.

You shouldn't buy a product you don't consider worth the money, but your claim of arbitrary pricing by Apple is unfounded and demonstrably wrong, most especially in the case of iOS products. Ultimately, you're making an emotional argument ("Apple products feel overpriced") rather than a logical one.

Didn't anyone think that to make the most profits it must mean that they charge the most surcharge on their products?

No. That's a very naive view of production. The profitability is derived from margin, which they increase by driving down their costs through superior supply chain management. Do they have an obligation to pass their savings on to the consumer? No. As long as their products are priced competitively with the competition and of similar value, the prices are fair. The iPhone isn't the most expensive smartphone on the market, so any claims of overpricing fall flat.

Also consider the amount of infrastructure dedicated to potentially supporting each iPhone customer, at no additional or recurring cost - iCloud, Siri, iOS updates, etc. All of these costs are amortized and built into the final, one-time sale price of each device over its projected lifetime.

moullas wrote:

The whole point of competition is to get better products and better prices... look at Intel vs AMD, I don't think we'd have the prices and performance of today if there was no competition. However, somehow, Apple is fine charging whatever they fell like, and getting away with it. And that's the reason I'm never buying an Apple product.

You shouldn't buy a product you don't consider worth the money, but your claim of arbitrary pricing by Apple is unfounded and demonstrably wrong, most especially in the case of iOS products. Ultimately, you're making an emotional argument ("Apple products feel overpriced") rather than a logical one.

Windows Phone is cool, though

Buying anything for me, with MY money, is emotional to me. End result, it's what it feels like to me. €700 for iPhone4S vs €500 for GalaxyS2, for 2 devices of very similar specs... yep I can find something else to do with my extra money.

I know in the US it's very different because of carrier subsidies, but if you have to pay the full price, +extra for a data plan then you'll think twice about comparing everything on the market and finding the best price/performance for you.

This is pretty disingenuous. The cost of labor is a small fraction of the overall product. One article estimated bringing iPhone production to the US would cost an extra $65/unit. IMO that's a gross overestimation based on very back of a napkin calculations that fail to take into the account the tax benefits Apple would experience by not having to repatriate money back into the US at a 35% tax rate, or tax incentives from local and state authorities that would bring down their costs in return for the jobs they would provide.

That's probably a ceteris paribus calculation, which is useless because all things are most certainly not equal. What is the monetary cost of a tremendous loss of manufacturing nimbleness, when you factor in an increase in necessary lead times which means greater warehousing requirements? Does this $65 estimate account for that?

I understand the angst over the perceived loss of jobs that could be done by Americans (though that's a total red herring, as they won't do it at its actual global market rate; we need illegal immigrants to pick our fruit, after all), and the complex feelings of guilt based on the working and living conditions of the workers making the discretionary electronics purchases we buy. It's misplaced, however, because Americans are notoriously insular and ignorant about the world at large, and consequently have a deeply flawed frame of reference for situations such as this. Couple that with the general inscrutability of macroeconomics to most people and you have a recipe for bad prescriptives, from calls to pay Chinese workers more (you can't unilaterally raise wages on tasks of a certain type beyond a certain degree without incurring significant political pressure from competitors and government to conform to industry normative ranges - this isn't Henry Ford in Dearborn, MI) to claims the jobs can be "brought home" (Wu Shi has linked to the NY Times article investigating the realities there).

The simple truth is that Americans, in aggregate, are not willing to make the standard of living sacrifices necessary to rebalance the economic pressures that precipitate Foxconn et al. A bigger, more complex truth is that developing, industrializing economies who primarily export labor are depending on them not to.

sonicmerlin wrote:

At any rate, the US does nothing to force foreign manufacturers to provide higher quality of living to their employees. We could easily pass legislation forcing all exporters to care more for their environment or reduce employee hours (which would reduce labor supply and drive up wages) if they wanted to sell in the American market. But the US doesn't because it cares far more about its corporations than its citizens or foreigners.

Any proposed solution to a complex problem that is described by beginning, "We could easily..." is almost invariably wrong. Complex problems are complex because they lack easy solutions.

Buying anything for me, with MY money, is emotional to me. End result, it's what it feels like to me. €700 for iPhone4S vs €500 for GalaxyS2, for 2 devices of very similar specs... yep I can find something else to do with my extra money.

I know in the US it's very different because of carrier subsidies, but if you have to pay the full price, +extra for a data plan then you'll think twice about comparing everything on the market and finding the best price/performance for you.

Even at full price, the iPhone is not the most expensive smartphone on the market (and I am not being disingenuous and comparing it to absurd value propositions like Nokia's Vertu line). Turning your reasoning on you, however, your Galaxy S II is not the cheapest device on the market, either. Even you opted for a device offered at a price premium over some alternative, presumably because of some perceived value it represented to you. Does this mean that Samsung is charging an unreasonable, arbitrary surcharge? You clearly don't think so.

That's what we call "cognitive dissonance": a set of constraints resulting in one decision for you are fine, but similar constraints resulting in a different decision for someone else are not.

Be emotional with your money. It's your money, after all! Let other people be emotional with theirs. Realize that the urge to present your emotional reasoning is unproductive, as it lacks the dispassion, statistical relevance and intellectual rigor to actually mean anything. That's the point here.

As i said, my choice based on my estimate on Price / Performance and what one can afford.

Same way every (or most) intelligent beings make decisions, like buying a car, booking a flight etc etc.

Now.... the reason I originally posted a reply was to make a point of.. why is everyone trying to convince everyone else that what THEY use is the one true choice?

I don't see people on the street telling others that they have THE BEST CAR EVER, or that their's is better. In most countries and societies this would be considered rude. However, iOS and Android discussions totally disregard social conventions and turn people into 5 year olds involved in pissing contests. And that's what I want an answer about.

Doesn't Nokia have factories in countries other than China, like Finland?

They used to have one in Germany, but it was closed down a couple of years ago. I think the products made there are no made in a east Europe nation, in a way the European equivalent of China.

Probably Hungary or Romania although they've just closed down the Romanian plant.

My N9 is from Finland, C7 from Hungary, N900 from Finland, E71 Finland again. We've had a couple of the cheaper phones in the family from China too. I do like it when I get the box and it says 'Made in Finland' on it. It's somehow more right that it's made in the same country as the company that designed it.

All the Lumias are outsourced to Compal in China from what I gather. Certainly the developer version I got was. It looks of identical quality to the Finnish N9 I have, except for the OS of course. ;-)

The simple truth is that Americans, in aggregate, are not willing to make the standard of living sacrifices necessary to rebalance the economic pressures that precipitate Foxconn et al. A bigger, more complex truth is that developing, industrializing economies who primarily export labor are depending on them not to.

Your whole post deserves a re-read (and maybe a clarification about what you meant in the para I've quoted above).

There are two aspects I'd add. First, a cute post yesterday about somebody taking two years to cut thru San Francisco's red tape to open … an ice cream shop. No toxics, slave labor or nuttin, just people getting some tasty treat, and bureaucratic sclerosis about whether you have 15 or more seats, limited beverage choices, etc. Add a somewhat more analytic post about the time and money to add to a NYC subway line. Worse than Shanghai or Kunming, big duh, but also more individual-rights-friendly cities like London. Americans just don't care about business done in construction project time, let alone internet time.

Into this morass, the sort of business genii that Ars attracts, would tell Apple to dump its production while competing against Samsungs, Nokias and others who wouldn't DREAM of trying to do quick-turnaround projects here. (The success of Sammy's new fab in Texas will bear watching.)

And secondly, as the Chrysler spot on the Superbowl highlighted, we've been going this route for a couple of decades now. Generally, that's been a Good Thing, with the sort of wages and salaries that mean almost every American reading Ars is paid more than counterparts in China, India or Korea. But as they've become unencumbered by counterproductive economic theories, the other 5.7 billion people in the world have managed to bootstrap themselves up on education and infrastructure, while capital has also flowed to educated, ambitious people who want more than they can get by growing a small plot of cabbages. Like virtually every economic disruption in history, we sat back on our past accomplishments and mostly failed to recognize that we weren't as productive or smart as we thought.

The re-emergence of China and India as great economic powers — and the better lives of their people that is resulting from it — is already one of the great historical facts of world history. Trying to turn back the clock is ridiculous.

You inferred that incorrectly from my statement. What I meant was that there is "something" in the Android user experience or user environment that is compelling new smartphone users.

More than likely it's the sales pitch. BOGO free or like the offer AT&T sent me, 2 LG Phoenix free if my wife and I would switch. We're staying w/Sprint and buying iPhone 4S's this week when our return gets here. Not touching an Android phone. I can see where plenty of people would go for a free phone. Used to be only the dull feature phones were free.

I saw a ditsy lady in my local Sprint store today complaining that her contacts had all disappeared from her new iPhone 4S after she had backed up her iPhone (what she actually did was restore from a backup that was done at a time when she had no contacts, and on top of that, she had never synced contacts to her iTunes).

I deftly swung my head around and rattled off the following:

"If you had stuck with your Android, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at home signing in to your Android again with your Gmail account and instantly retrieving every single one of your contacts."

She locked eyes with me and admitted sheepishly..."yeah, I know...I used to have an Android, but the iPhone looked so cool!"

/facepalm

If you had said that to me, I would've instantly decided to never buy another Android based phone again.

This is pretty disingenuous. The cost of labor is a small fraction of the overall product. One article estimated bringing iPhone production to the US would cost an extra $65/unit. IMO that's a gross overestimation based on very back of a napkin calculations that fail to take into the account the tax benefits Apple would experience by not having to repatriate money back into the US at a 35% tax rate, or tax incentives from local and state authorities that would bring down their costs in return for the jobs they would provide.

Speaking of disingenuous, you are forgetting that there is not really the manufacturing infrastructure here in the US to do this anymore. There would need to be facilities built to provide these American jobs. So you are at least a couple of years out probably, even if Apple started investing in building the facilities themselves right now.

Seems to me that Apple "losing new users" could also be interpreted as Android less likely to retain repeat customers.

Can somebody explain to me this logic?So: Apple losing new users <is equivalent to> Android is less likely to retain customers(No, seriously, I cannot follow how it came to this conclusion)

Did you read the linked article and look at the charts? Android has a very high percentage of first time buyers (57% Android, 34% iOS), but a the percentage of overall buyers is lower (48% Android, 43% iOS).

Seems logical that to me that Android could be losing repeat (i.e. non-first time) buyers to iOS.

Not when you consider that Apple _does_ inspire spectacular and sometimes blind loyalty, and its release cycle (and forced obsolescence; like most of its current business strategy, this was a lesson well-learned from Microsoft). The end result is that countless iProduct users update to the latest version very quickly after it comes out, whether they need it or if there's any spectacular difference.

So, with overall sales being approximately equal, and what is approaching a 2/3 majority of new sales going to Android, there's really not enough data to draw the conclusion he's (rightly) mocking. There is simply no data (or logic, for that matter) to read "Android has more new users" and walk away with "Android loses more users." The numbers simply do not support this case, not given Apple's own retention stats, and how often their users upgrade.

On the Android side of the equation, I see a lot that keep their phones for quite a while. Hell, the only reason I have an HTC Desire is because I managed to drop my CliqXT in water, and the warranty was up. The only reason I'm looking into replacing that Desire now is because I've been looking into 3d cameras, but have found that I take a dispraportionate number of photos with my phone than my digicam, so a phone with a 3d camera and display would be the better investment. In addition, the more savvy users are likely to experiment with alternative OS's, such as Cyanogen mod, which is the main reason the Desire is still fine for me (being able to expand the system partition onto the SD card with Cyanogen makes the Desire, with far too little internal memory, perfectly fine with all the new, big fancy apps available.)

So, yet another way to look at the numbers is this: a majority (or at least a non-trivial number) of Apple users upgrade to the latest model relatively quickly, with each iteration (I think many will agree with this statement, and my personal observations certainly support it). A large proportion of Android users stick with a phone quite a while (let's assume 2 years, since that would let them get the contract discount for the upgrade). Thus the larger lead in new sales could certainly account for the smaller number of repeat sales (or rather, lower FREQUENCY of repeat sales), while Apple's lower new sales, but high frequency of annual upgrades, could result in the very close numbers we see on overall sales.

But as I've said, there's simply not enough data to support ANY conclusions based on the numbers we've seen. They're sales figures, they're not metrics on consumer behavior, which is what is needed to really evaluate it in the way the inane speculation (and even calling it speculation is difficult) in this thread is attempting to.

Duh, lets break down the numbers into screen size? Bigger is simply better, maybe not on a current crapple device battery, but lets hope the engineers start getting a clue. I don't want a crapple myself, but I also don't want Goog/MS only choices.

I saw a ditsy lady in my local Sprint store today complaining that her contacts had all disappeared from her new iPhone 4S after she had backed up her iPhone (what she actually did was restore from a backup that was done at a time when she had no contacts, and on top of that, she had never synced contacts to her iTunes).

I deftly swung my head around and rattled off the following:

"If you had stuck with your Android, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at home signing in to your Android again with your Gmail account and instantly retrieving every single one of your contacts."

She locked eyes with me and admitted sheepishly..."yeah, I know...I used to have an Android, but the iPhone looked so cool!"

/facepalm

If you had said that to me, I would've instantly decided to never buy another Android based phone again.

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

This is definitely NOT the current information we have. On US carriers with both Androids and Apples, 4th quarter sales favored Apple. Partly because of upgraders and new customers correctly holding off in Q3, which made Android look excessively strong earlier.

Best to stick with your main point: this is pretty noisy data from which to draw sweeping conclusions.

They're keeping up with Samsung, HTC, Nokia, etc. just fine. But they can't keep up with the Android ecosystem as a whole. They're one against legion.

The problem with this argumentation is that Apple isn't even in the same fight – they've already shown that they're fine with having a low market share just as long as they have the lion's profit share (similar to the PC market). That profit share Apple reaps is still increasing, by the way – it's almost comical to remember that at least it can't climb above 100% of the total. Three quarters they've already crossed, after two thirds before and half before that...

Hence why I said they don't even want to play that game.

Apple's playing their own game, like they always have. They're the boutique guys; they offer products made the Apple way, and if you like the Apple way, you buy it. If you don't, fuck you, they're not changing. That's something that has always worked very well for them in the past; after all, their only fallow period was in the '90s, when Jobs wasn't around and they deviated from that playbook with tons of models, licensing clones, etc.

Not when you consider that Apple _does_ inspire spectacular and sometimes blind loyalty,

How do they do that? Maybe by providing products which people really like? And why is that? And why is that supposed to be something bad?

sporkwitch wrote:

and its release cycle (and forced obsolescence;

They really suck at "forced obsolescence", though – they've just effectively prolonged their first-rate upgrade support for existing devices effectively to at least(!) four years by continuing to sell the 3GS new beyond three years since its release, and they'll certainly extend support beyond the end of its sale period.

Nice stereotypical assumption, just pretty harshly contradicted by the facts.

sporkwitch wrote:

like most of its current business strategy, this was a lesson well-learned from Microsoft). The end result is that countless iProduct users update to the latest version very quickly after it comes out, whether they need it or if there's any spectacular difference.

Can anyone recommend a smart phone not made by slave labor at Foxconn?

I'm tired of this meme. Virtually everything you will buy, is in part made via child labor. Whether it's made in China, Thailand, Vietnam, India, or Mexico (or elsewhere). There's plenty of little kids slaving away to get your shit made. While it's very much wrong, at least these factories provide wages and work environments much better than where these kids might be working without said factories (like coca fields, rice patties, or acting as drug mules). As said countries progress, things will only improve for those who work there (just as things did here, in the 'States - remember what factories were like in the US in the early 1900's).

Yes, we can and should do better to force third world countries to improve worker's rights. However, we can't do without inexpensive manufacturing. Lest of course you want to pay $900 for even the least feature worthy motherboard and $5,000 for every iPad. Sometimes life sucks, but this is the way it is.

Just remember, Apple is far from the only tech company building product in these countries. Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, and Dell are just a few to name names.

Corporate Execs go out of their way to make people believe that. In reality money saved does not go into consumer savings, it goes into the pockets of top management and execs.

If it costs $3 to make a toy in China and it costs $5 to make it here, they will still sell it for $8.

I saw a ditsy lady in my local Sprint store today complaining that her contacts had all disappeared from her new iPhone 4S after she had backed up her iPhone (what she actually did was restore from a backup that was done at a time when she had no contacts, and on top of that, she had never synced contacts to her iTunes).

I deftly swung my head around and rattled off the following:

"If you had stuck with your Android, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at home signing in to your Android again with your Gmail account and instantly retrieving every single one of your contacts."

She locked eyes with me and admitted sheepishly..."yeah, I know...I used to have an Android, but the iPhone looked so cool!"

/facepalm

If you had said that to me, I would've instantly decided to never buy another Android based phone again.

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

Perhaps, then, the real key to gaining market share is a cadre of double agents posing as obnoxious users or sales representatives. If you can convince people to never buy a product again simply by being obnoxious enough, who knows what market share upheavals you could cause?

Any proposed solution to a complex problem that is described by beginning, "We could easily..." is almost invariably wrong. Complex problems are complex because they lack easy solutions.

The problems are actually very simple, but world governments, who are mostly under control of their respective megacorportations (even russia and china, no matter how hard it might be for some of you to believe) are creating such problems in the first place and then spin to make the guilleble public believe in such problem. Then they propose half assed solutions that make the problem they themselves created worse (just look at US and World economic crisis). But it is important to have a good belivable story, which is why thousands of bullshit artists (in the face of economists, media, etc) are employed to tell fairy tales and make you believe thing they want you to believe.

The reality is indeed a lot of problems can be easily solved, if there really was a desire to solve them.

Into this morass, the sort of business genii that Ars attracts, would tell Apple to dump its production while competing against Samsungs, Nokias and others who wouldn't DREAM of trying to do quick-turnaround projects here. (The success of Sammy's new fab in Texas will bear watching.)

Semiconductor fabs aren't normally considered quick-turnaround projects. Also, by the time a company has agreed to locate a fab somewhere, they already have local officials bending over backwards to do whatever needs to be done to make things happen. Because if they don't, the fab doesn't go there.

Walt French wrote:

And secondly, as the Chrysler spot on the Superbowl highlighted, we've been going this route for a couple of decades now. Generally, that's been a Good Thing, with the sort of wages and salaries that mean almost every American reading Ars is paid more than counterparts in China, India or Korea. But as they've become unencumbered by counterproductive economic theories, the other 5.7 billion people in the world have managed to bootstrap themselves up on education and infrastructure, while capital has also flowed to educated, ambitious people who want more than they can get by growing a small plot of cabbages. Like virtually every economic disruption in history, we sat back on our past accomplishments and mostly failed to recognize that we weren't as productive or smart as we thought.

The re-emergence of China and India as great economic powers — and the better lives of their people that is resulting from it — is already one of the great historical facts of world history. Trying to turn back the clock is ridiculous.

Wages in developed countries are high because those workers add the most value. Our goal is for (a) workers in developed countries to continue to add lots of value and thus earn high wages, (b) workers in developing countries to continue to add greater value, gain increasing salaries as a result, and eventually also end up with high wages. Economic growth is not a win/lose proposition.

This has worked for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and it didn't destroy existing developed countries. It is working for China and India, and it's not actually destroying existing developed countries now, either. Hopefully it will work for other countries in the future too.

Besides, there's a distinct possibility that a significant percentage of manufacturing is going to be changing in the next few years and returning to the country of consumption anyway. As rapid prototyping technologies like 3D printing, CNC machines, and the use of ink jet technologies to apply spray coatings and resins improve, there's going to be an opportunity for this approach to just-in-time manufacturing to transition from being used for prototyping and hobbyists to being used for just-in-time custom manufacturing on a significant scale. Anyone who has ideas for designs can set up a random Cafe Press or Spreadshirt shop and customers can flock to the ones they like and buy designs that would never make sense to be mass-manufactured in Asia. So why not plates and toys and cell-phone housings and end tables? Make new designs so fast that by the time you could retool a production line in China -- nevermind distribute those products out to stores -- people have already moved on to the next thing.

Seriously, current iTunes software even supports 10 year-old iPod hardware. That is basically a museum level of support. Original model iPhones aren’t exactly bleeding edge tech these days but they still work and are usable, even if App Store options are limited because 3rd party app developers don’t bother with such a tiny slice (what, a few weeks of sales of iPhone now somewhere around total original iPhone sales?)

Oh, and learned from Microsoft? On regards to what? The Microsoft’s handling of the Zune? One thing that Microsoft definitely did right by their Zune customers was also ongoing firmware support and upgrades for the Zune.

I saw a ditsy lady in my local Sprint store today complaining that her contacts had all disappeared from her new iPhone 4S after she had backed up her iPhone (what she actually did was restore from a backup that was done at a time when she had no contacts, and on top of that, she had never synced contacts to her iTunes).

I deftly swung my head around and rattled off the following:

"If you had stuck with your Android, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at home signing in to your Android again with your Gmail account and instantly retrieving every single one of your contacts."

She locked eyes with me and admitted sheepishly..."yeah, I know...I used to have an Android, but the iPhone looked so cool!"

/facepalm

If you had said that to me, I would've instantly decided to never buy another Android based phone again.

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

Perhaps, then, the real key to gaining market share is a cadre of double agents posing as obnoxious users or sales representatives. If you can convince people to never buy a product again simply by being obnoxious enough, who knows what market share upheavals you could cause?

I saw a ditsy lady in my local Sprint store today complaining that her contacts had all disappeared from her new iPhone 4S after she had backed up her iPhone (what she actually did was restore from a backup that was done at a time when she had no contacts, and on top of that, she had never synced contacts to her iTunes).

I deftly swung my head around and rattled off the following:

"If you had stuck with your Android, you wouldn't be here. You'd be at home signing in to your Android again with your Gmail account and instantly retrieving every single one of your contacts."

She locked eyes with me and admitted sheepishly..."yeah, I know...I used to have an Android, but the iPhone looked so cool!"

/facepalm

Your example has nothing to do with iPhone or Android specifically. The lady never backed up her contacts. How would she have retrieved contacts from her Gmail account if she'd never made one?

In iOS she has two ways of backing up her contacts. One is through iTunes and the other is through iCloud. If she doesn't make use of the service, there is little else that can be done.

The point I'm trying to make is that while she was competent with her Android, somehow she failed with the iPhone. If a soccer mom can use an Android without problems, what does that say about iOS? That maybe it isn't as intuitive as some might say?

I cannot tell you how many times I have "rescued" my iPhone-toting friends from data loss, contact loss, music and video loss. I don't care what solutions are in place or what features are available for use, the problem is this: why am I always putting crap back onto peoples' iPhones and not Androids?

Something in the process is affecting how people are handling data or contact backup when it comes to Android vs iOS.

Maybe this (whatever "this" might be exactly) is why new smartphone users are still choosing Android.

Hmm, this new smartphone user bought an Iphone 4 8GB because I didn't want to spend a lot of money and wanted something intuitive to use. My contacts are backed up via iCloud as well as the free VerizonContactTransfer app. Funny enough, I didn't have any trouble figuring this out myself. Of course, that could be because I'm not...a) a soccer mom, or b) "ditsy" enough.

This is definitely NOT the current information we have. On US carriers with both Androids and Apples, 4th quarter sales favored Apple. Partly because of upgraders and new customers correctly holding off in Q3, which made Android look excessively strong earlier.

Best to stick with your main point: this is pretty noisy data from which to draw sweeping conclusions.

Excellent use of selective snipping. The full quote was "nearly a 2/3 majority of new sales going to Android" (and with numbers rising).

Constructor wrote:

sporkwitch wrote:

Not when you consider that Apple _does_ inspire spectacular and sometimes blind loyalty,

How do they do that? Maybe by providing products which people really like? And why is that? And why is that supposed to be something bad?

They really suck at "forced obsolescence", though – they've just effectively prolonged their first-rate upgrade support for existing devices effectively to at least(!) four years by continuing to sell the 3GS new beyond three years since its release, and they'll certainly extend support beyond the end of its sale period.

Nice stereotypical assumption, just pretty harshly contradicted by the facts.

By refusing to provide highly sought-after features on earlier models that are perfectly capable of running them. A prime example is also one of their biggest disservice to their developers (and also an example of the "blind" flavor of loyalty), is the addition of WiFi Sync in iOS5, not allowing the feature on earlier models that may well work perfectly fine (and can absolutely handle the feature; we've had it on various PDA's since years before the iPod, let alone the iPhone, came out). Further, the community developer that wrote the functionality initially, due to user demand, was refused the right to sell it on the Apple App Store, went on to sell quite a few copies on the Cydia store, and then Apple implemented it themselves, using even the same icon (well, more similarity between the icon and some of the "copying apple's interface!" arguments), without so much as a penny of compensation to him.

But I digress. They may not take forced obsolescence to the extreme that Microsoft does, but they still engage in it. I'll concede that including the point in that context and without further clarification could be a bit disingenuous.

EDIT:It was refused from the store by Apple, he wrote it due to user demand.

Constructor wrote:

sporkwitch wrote:

like most of its current business strategy, this was a lesson well-learned from Microsoft). The end result is that countless iProduct users update to the latest version very quickly after it comes out, whether they need it or if there's any spectacular difference.

Wasn't insinuating anything, was stating a fact: the frequency of upgrades for a significant portion of iProduct users is in lockstep with the release cycle of new devices. Regardless of the difference between models, regardless of if there's any real need to replace the old one they have, they do it. And don't even get me started on some of the more absurd (mostly younger owners, admittedly) rants on twitter, facebook, etc. of "my parents bought me a black one, i want a white one!" or "i wanted a white one for xmas! i'm still stuck with this lame black one!"

Finally, had you really read the post for anything other than trying to pick relatively insignificant pieces apart, you'd have notice that my CONCLUSION was that there's simply insufficient data with the information provided to speculate in any direction. They're both selling well, they appeal to different markets, they sell in different ways and frequencies. The primary purpose of the post was to put out another, thought-out possibility (read: speculation), based on the same evidence of the others thrown out (both the good, reasonable ones, and the absurd baseless ones like "android gets new sales therefor android doesn't keep customers"), and to point out that we simply don't have sufficient information to make any truly solid speculation.

Tyler X. Durden wrote:

sporkwitch wrote:

Not when you consider that Apple _does_ inspire spectacular and sometimes blind loyalty, and its release cycle (and forced obsolescence; like most of its current business strategy...

Seriously, current iTunes software even supports 10 year-old iPod hardware. That is basically a museum level of support. Original model iPhones aren’t exactly bleeding edge tech these days but they still work and are usable, even if App Store options are limited because 3rd party app developers don’t bother with such a tiny slice (what, a few weeks of sales of iPhone now somewhere around total original iPhone sales?)

Oh, and learned from Microsoft? On regards to what? The Microsoft’s handling of the Zune? One thing that Microsoft definitely did right by their Zune customers was also ongoing firmware support and upgrades for the Zune.

You, sir, are a fookin’ idiot.

I was actually referring to the addition of desirable features available prior to the release of the iPOD, not iTunes. As to that lovely lock-in tool iTunes (see: lesson learned from MS) they'd likely be in for an anti-trust case if they ceased allowing older models to work with it (similar to the threats of France and Germany). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's still not possible to get iProducts to play nice with proper drag-and-drop support as the glorified flashdrives that all mp3 players are. You're forced to use iTunes, and if they ceased to support a model I can say from experience (albeit 2 years ago), that accessing it as a flash drive to get the music off requires digging through numerous garbage-named hidden folders, to pull out the garbage-named music files.

As to the Apple App Store, there's no technical limitation on many of the features added in later versions that older models are refused support for. This creates an artificial lockout from applications that would likely run fine. Further, in spite of "all that horrible fragmentation," Android is making a pretty strong case for older devices having little or no trouble running many of the new applications. Let the dev flag the app if they're afraid it won't run well on an older model.

Regarding the Zune, absolutely not, MS was headed down the tubes well before that fiasco, but Apple has learned wonderfully from MS during the 80's and 90's. If the corporate control on government weren't so strong these days (not that it wasn't before), MS might be in for another anti-trust suit (maybe without being able to buy the dismissal after repeated convictions), and many of Apple's tactics these days would likely be under scrutiny, if only due to marketshare.

Also, lose the ad hominem, it merely points out your lack of understanding and lack of an actual argument.

Sure it can – to a restored backup of the library it is synchronized to.

If you're not making backups, you declare that data to be irrelevant to you, as the saying goes, and that is unfortunately quite true.

News to me. Searching apple and the web for backing up your itunes music or migrating over only yields articles about moving music.

Quote:

I don't see how any of that actually relates to iTunes or the iPhone itself. You lost data while messing with the computer and not having proper backups. That is a whole different kettle of fish (which using a Mac with Time Machine would most likely have prevented).

In view of such problems it might have been better to delegate backups to iCloud instead if the local computer is unstable and without backups.

I didn't lose any data - it was a new SSD I installed and simply moved data from one drive to another. There were a bunch of files with long file names for his album artwork that no matter what refused to copy over.[/quote]

Quote:

No, you still don't realize how it works. Tracks which are not recognized by iTunes Match are in fact uploaded "as is" and from the user's point of view still behave identically to those that had been matched to tracks in the Store (the initial matching process just takes longer since more data will actually have to be moved). So "weird stuff" works just the same as if it was in the Store, it just won't get upgraded if you only have it in low quality.

Quirks in how matching can behave in specific circumstances seem to surface occasionally, but overall it appears to be working as advertised (as I mentioned above I have no use for it personally).

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

Perhaps, then, the real key to gaining market share is a cadre of double agents posing as obnoxious users or sales representatives. If you can convince people to never buy a product again simply by being obnoxious enough, who knows what market share upheavals you could cause?

I can't think of an exact example in this marketplace, but I think the humorless Samsung ad comes unintentionally close by dismissing the social phenomenon of spiffy new features (that everybody+his dog knows Apple has). Buy a Sammy and be smugger than thou? Well, a bit of a stretch. The “really?” ads at least were not dehumanizing, and funny.

But your idea is NOT original; you can see it quite a bit in negative political ads. “A pox on both their houses” attitudes favors the incumbents and those who have a firm hold on their supporters' loyalty.

Hmm, this new smartphone user bought an Iphone 4 8GB because I didn't want to spend a lot of money and wanted something intuitive to use. My contacts are backed up via iCloud as well as the free VerizonContactTransfer app. Funny enough, I didn't have any trouble figuring this out myself. Of course, that could be because I'm not...a) a soccer mom, or b) "ditsy" enough.

It's certainly not difficult to figure out, and it _is_ easy on iProducts, from what I know. That being said, 1) you're posting on Ars Technica, and are therefor well ahead of the curve compared to the majority of people, especially in the US, and 2) automatic sync simply by typing your email the first time you use the phone will always be better than having to take extra steps.

The fact that you pretty much have to make a conscious effort _not_ to have Android sync your contacts (please see note below), and apps are, by definition, sync'd to your account. This is extremely important. I was actually extremely impressed when I switched to my new phone, thinking i'd lost a lot of contacts because I had never done a proper manual sync, and then right after I punched in my gmail account, the new phone started pulling everything down, and combining (and linking appropriately) with the info stored on the SIM.

NOTE mentioned above:This is, of course, a mixed bag. If you are concerned about privacy, automatic synchronization would not be ideal, you'd want more control. That being said, whether it's through iCloud or Gmail, you're still syncing to the cloud of a corporation, both of which are subject to Section 215 of the PATRIOT ACT, whether you're a US citizen yourself, or not. So it depends what you want, and what you're willing to share. Personally, I don't see much point in hiding most things, for the simple fact that google is all-knowing, and even if I don't post info about myself, someone that knows me will. You simply can't control information in the modern age. And to take a common hacker sentiment: information wants to be free (free as in freedom, not as in no price, though both is preferable).

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

Perhaps, then, the real key to gaining market share is a cadre of double agents posing as obnoxious users or sales representatives. If you can convince people to never buy a product again simply by being obnoxious enough, who knows what market share upheavals you could cause?

I can't think of an exact example in this marketplace, but I think the humorless Samsung ad comes unintentionally close by dismissing the social phenomenon of spiffy new features (that everybody+his dog knows Apple has). Buy a Sammy and be smugger than thou? Well, a bit of a stretch. The “really?” ads at least were not dehumanizing, and funny.

But your idea is NOT original; you can see it quite a bit in negative political ads. “A pox on both their houses” attitudes favors the incumbents and those who have a firm hold on their supporters' loyalty.

Let's not forget years and millions (did it hit billions?) of US dollars spent in anti-Linux propaganda by Microsoft, with a large majority of said propaganda still believed by almost everyone that's not an active Linux user, even when the specific "fact" has either never been the case, or hasn't been the case for as long as a decade or more.

Propaganda works, pure and simple. If it didn't, it wouldn't still be around after however many centuries (possibly millenia?) that it has.

This is definitely NOT the current information we have. On US carriers with both Androids and Apples, 4th quarter sales favored Apple. Partly because of upgraders and new customers correctly holding off in Q3, which made Android look excessively strong earlier.

Best to stick with your main point: this is pretty noisy data from which to draw sweeping conclusions.

Excellent use of selective snipping. The full quote was "nearly a 2/3 majority of new sales going to Android" (and with numbers rising).

I wasn't, and still am not, trying to play games with your statement, merely to streamline it. The 4Q phone numbers I recalled had Apple ahead of all Androids at AT&T and Verizon. The worldwide numbers I've seen estimated that some misinterpreted as Android losing its lead were Android growing a couple of percentage points faster than Apple.

I'll be surprised, but happy to be corrected by anything reasonably authoritative, showing a wider split than 60% Android, 40% everybody else.

Mostly, it's not a big deal because it looks to me that BOTH Google and Apple are winning at their respective games. Google kept Microsoft off its oxygen hose by buying Android back in '05 so mobile ad revenue never got locked up by Bing; Apple gets perceived as a savvy popularizer, and rakes in the bucks by doing it.

In sales training, one of the first facts you learn is that nobody remembers more than about 10% of the factual info you give, but they almost instantly respond to, and remember for a long time, how you made them feel.

The sneering condescension that is typified above is amazing to me. Supposedly bright people actively working against a cause (?!?) they seemingly hold dear. Well, I take it that commenters on Ars go hyperbolic and so Android will continue to succeed nonetheless.

Perhaps, then, the real key to gaining market share is a cadre of double agents posing as obnoxious users or sales representatives. If you can convince people to never buy a product again simply by being obnoxious enough, who knows what market share upheavals you could cause?

I can't think of an exact example in this marketplace, but I think the humorless Samsung ad comes unintentionally close by dismissing the social phenomenon of spiffy new features (that everybody+his dog knows Apple has). Buy a Sammy and be smugger than thou? Well, a bit of a stretch. The “really?” ads at least were not dehumanizing, and funny.

But your idea is NOT original; you can see it quite a bit in negative political ads. “A pox on both their houses” attitudes favors the incumbents and those who have a firm hold on their supporters' loyalty.

Let's not forget years and millions (did it hit billions?) of US dollars spent in anti-Linux propaganda by Microsoft, with a large majority of said propaganda still believed by almost everyone that's not an active Linux user, even when the specific "fact" has either never been the case, or hasn't been the case for as long as a decade or more.

Propaganda works, pure and simple. If it didn't, it wouldn't still be around after however many centuries (possibly millenia?) that it has.

No, the concept was reverse propaganda -- enthusiasts for a platform so unpleasant that it inspired people to stay away from that platform. Like smug [insert platform here] users so annoying that it makes you want to never have anything to do with that platform. (I could pick out a platform and say that it's known for having such users, but the reality is that every platform has them, so I won't pick that fight.)

Except that in this case they would actually be agents provocateurs, secretly hired by a competitor to make enthusiasts for a platform look bad.